Daylight Breaks
by Dragon'sHost
Summary: It's been a long time since the Alvarez army was defeated. Having narrowly escaped imprisonment, Invel wanders across Ishgar's changed landscape, eventually finding himself at a village in the desert...


**Dedicated to Lady Serai, who desired more Flare x Invel in the world! I had a ton of fun plotting this one, and I'm excited to see where it goes.**

 **I'm planning for this to take place over the course of several years, and the characters are a little older to start with. Should be fun to experiment with.**

 **Special thanks to raijindork for proofreading!**

* * *

Harsh, unforgiving light shone down on the ice mage, almost as burning hot as the earth beneath his feet, his head wrap and sandals doing little to protect either much. The desert during the day was not a place meant for one such as him. The autumn nights were just as extreme as the day, however. With temperatures dropping rapidly the second the sun left the sky, it became so bone achingly cold that even a mage with ice in his veins would find it intolerable. Shade and shelter under the scrub brush was of dubious safety at best - the local fauna more than willing to compete for the resource with poison-filled stingers, fangs, and claws.

But as least here, no one would look for him. Comrade and foe alike would scorn this wasteland - except, perhaps, for Ajeel and Dimaria, but he had seen them in handcuffs with his own eyes so long ago.

It had been three years since Alvarez's defeat.

Sometimes that fact struck him, hard, at the strangest of moments. When he woke first thing some mornings, but not others. Sometimes when he ate a dish with the right blend of spices, or smelled a distinctive, imported perfume. A hint of a familiar accent, and when the wind blew just right. Nostalgia would then grip him in its clutches, with a great, aching emptiness right on its heels, waiting to knock him to the ground. He simultaneously felt every second of the intervening years, and none of it.

Invel sometimes wondered why he hadn't just given up at this point. Just... turned himself over to the Ishgar forces along with his friends. Death or imprisonment... it couldn't be worse than this. This interminable existence, spread out in front of him as unending and empty as the desert. What did he still persist for, in this farce of an existence? Why did he continue to wander, when he had nothing to look for? He'd lost everything already. His emperor. His comrades. His country. Ingress into Alvarez was under careful watch after the war. There was no way to sneak back, to return to his homeland. But then he'd get up in the morning, eat his food, perform what work he could come by, and keep moving.

Zeref, and the idealistic fervor that came with serving the immortal man, felt very distant to Invel now. A fever dream belonging to someone very different.

He reached up under his head wrap to wipe away the sweat beading on his forehead, leaving a greasy smear on his cracked glasses. Using his magic to cool himself down was out of the question - he'd already put himself into shock once before. Only through the kindness of a passerby had he survived the experience.

The place had changed, but the kindness of people remained the same.

Alvarez felt very, very far away.

Beneath his feet, the hard earth slowly gave way to sand. Pausing, Invel drew out a notebook full of drawings, and notated his position, before tucking it away and continuing on into the sands.

He had scarcely walked five minutes before the ground began to shake beneath his feet, the loose sand swarming up his ankles as the tremors increased in strength and Invel began to sink. A deep groan filled the air, followed by rumbling that shook the air as the earth did.

Panic and adrenaline consumed him as Invel forced his legs through the shifting sand, trying to move away from the horrible sound rising up behind. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move faster than a walking pace, and the increasing weight of the sand as he continuously sank slowed him even more. His heart pounded furiously, threatening to escape through his ribcage and leave the rest of him behind to fend for itself.

Suddenly the tremor stopped, and Invel stopped sinking. He struggled to extricate himself from the sand, doing more ineffectual flailing than rising. Panting heavily, he finally found himself on top of the sand again. As he fought to catch his breath, he turned to look behind him.

A new ravine stretched across the desert expanse, not even 40 meters away from where Invel lay, and about a meter or two across from what he could tell. Sand hissed as it fell over the edge, down, and down, and down.

Just as Invel stood up - intent on checking out the new feature in the landscape, rumbling shook the sands again. This time, Invel didn't sink, but he watched in horror as water came rushing down both ends of the ravine, the land on both sides crumbling away from the force. As the two onslaughts of water met, they erupted upward, and water droplets rained down.

From the overpowering smell, Invel deduced that it was seawater, and the section of land he was on was now an island. Trepidation in his gaze, Invel observed the expanse of water, the space between the two land masses now doubled. It was murky, and Invel suspected that the currents in the silty water would be more likely to pull him below than buoy him up.

A swath of land suddenly slipped into the water to Invel's left, the water swelling over the ravine lip from the displacement.

Invel backed away from the ravine until he felt he was a safe distance, and then drew out his notebook once more, faithfully notating the new landmark.

World maps had become useless after Irene had had her fun with Ishgar's landscape; her spell having rearranged not only the contents of the continent but its coastlines and mountain ranges as well. Tectonic upheaval and the resulting spike in volcanic activity changed it yet further. Invel had long ago discovered that he could sell data on landmarks that he encountered in his travels to any cartographers he encountered. As the land had yet to settle fully even these three years later, it was a stable means of income.

Provided he actually ran into anyone to sell the information _to_ , that is.

It looked as if that would be much harder in the immediate future.

Once he was finished, he turned around, and began walking through the desert once more.

* * *

The dawn light was bright on Invel's face, shining golden across the broken and torn landscape altered by Irene's Universe One spell. He lay on his back, in the dirt.

For a moment, he was back on the battlefield, blood caked on his face, his glasses shattered, one eye swollen shut, and his ears ringing from the sound of the ongoing battles.

Reality solidified around him, and suddenly he was in a forest, curled up in a tree hollow. Slanting shafts of light through the branches overhead had been what had woken him. He remembered finding the treeline after night had fallen on the desert, and the shelter was most welcome. Even more welcome was the dew on the tree leaves, which hopefully had not dried up yet with the morning sun.

He was in no such luck.

Water was his priority, now. His canteen only had enough water to last him half the day, at his best guess. Even though the shade of the trees was a balm, the air was still stifling hot.

Invel cast about, looking for an animal trail. Finding one a few paces from his tree, he began to follow it. All the lush greenery had to be sustained somehow, so as long as the water source wasn't underground, Invel reasoned that he had a high chance of encountering it if he kept to the paths made by the wildlife. Eventually.

The undergrowth was relatively sparse, as he picked his way along the path. The high and dense canopy blocked most of the sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Birds called to each other, unseen, amongst the branches. This particular trail meandered along the edge of the forest, plunged deeper, and then wandered back to the edge. Invel couldn't help but notice how abrupt the change between the sand and forest floor was from his vantage point. It was as if the trees just... stopped, like someone had planted them along a dotted line. It was very unnatural to his eyes. Yet... he saw no evidence that this shift was a result of Universe One.

It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Suddenly, the forest did not seem as welcoming as before. If it weren't for his pressing need for water, Invel would have headed back out into the desert to take his chances on the dunes.

The trail headed back into the forest, and Invel loyally followed its course. Further and further it went into the wood, and Invel realized that it was probably not going to come back to the desert's edge.

After several more minutes of walking, Invel heard the telltale sounds of running water. His pace increased, carrying him towards the life-giving liquid.

Banks of a stream appeared through the trees, and a rare smile unfolded across Invel's face at the welcome sight.

But then, another sight caught his attention as well.

A woman stood downstream from him, up to her knees in the water and clad in a white sundress ill-suited to the desert and a large hat that hid her face. She looked up from the water as she heard him approach, and Invel froze in his steps. Freckles burst everywhere on her tanned skin, and her hair - a rusty red - clung to her neck. The colour of which sent memories of Irene cascading through his memories in rapid succession. On her breast lay a brilliant crimson tattoo.

The spell of their locked gazes was broken by a shaft a of light breaking through the canopy, illuminating the stream and the girl.

Her eyes narrowed, and before Invel knew what was happening, he found himself on his back, staring up at the trees. Rendered immobile by... was it twine? Whatever it was, it kept Invel's head locked in position so he couldn't discern more, and it _burned_ as hot as the desert sun.

"Who are you?" the woman asked, her voice commanding Invel's attention. He heard her step out of the water, and make her way over to where he lay prone. When she stood above him, he finally saw it was her hair that bound him, flowing from her head in constricting, red waves.

"You are trespassing on territory belonging to the Sun Village!"


End file.
